Steve Reich, "The Desert Music"

As to the meaning of the text and music I hope that it speaks for itself. I have loved Dr. Williams' poetry since I was 16 years old and picked up a copy of his long poem Patterson just because I was fascinated by the symmetry of his name -- William Carlos Williams. I have continued reading his work to the present. I find Dr. Williams' finest work to be his late poetry written between 1954 and his death in 1963 at age 80. It is from this period in the poet's work that I have selected the texts for The Desert Music -- a period after the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Dr. Williams was acutely aware of the bomb and his words about it, in a poem about music entitled The Orchestra struck me as to the point: "Say to them:/ Man has survived hitherto because he was too ignorant/ to know how to realize his wishes. Now that he can realize/ them, he must either change them or perish." When I began work on The Desert Music I thought those words were too grave to set and thought I would use a tape of Dr. Williams reading them instead. When the time came to compose the third movement in the summer of 1983 I did know how to set them because the character of the harmonies in the third seemed to generate just the right setting. I was very glad now I did not resort to using a tape. In the center of the piece is the text, also from The Orchestra, which says, "it is a principle of music/ to repeat the theme. Repeat/ and repeat again,/ as the pace mounts. The/ theme is difficult/ but no more difficult/ than the facts to be/ resolved." Those at all familiar with my music will know how apt those words are for me and particularly this piece which, among other things, addresses that basic ambiguity between what the text says, and its pure sensuous sounds. 

Lennie Tristano, "Descent into the Maelstrom"

Recorded in 1953.

You Don't Know Yoko Ono

Most people only know the name Yoko Ono as a byword or a punchline. She is neither. I can't think of a single artist or celebrity with such a more undeserved reputation. If you don't know Ono, let me give you the skinny: Yoko hate is 1 part philistinism, 99 parts PURE SEXIST BULLSHIT. If you don't like avant-garde art or strange music, she won't be your bag. But neither (most likely) will David Lynch, Salvador Dali, Crispin Glover, John Cage et cetera. But these male artists don't get the kind of hatred Ono inspires, because it's expected that they are artists whose role it is to challenge and provoke. People don't think about Yoko Ono this way because, 1) she's a woman, and 2) she was John Lennon's girlfriend.

If you like the kind of crazy noise we often traffic in at Interplanetary Music, you should really give Ono's music a listen. Some of it is not good. Some of it is incredible, particularly the Plastic Ono Band album. The following documentary (you'll have to watch parts 2-6 on Youtube, because embedding is disabled for some stupid reason) helps debunk some of the Ono myths (and they are all myths, except for the one about her being a witch), but it doesn't do much in the way of appreciating her as an artist.

Hardcore Sax

Luc Ferrari & Otomo Yoshihide, "Archives Sauvees des Eaux"

Hat tip to my special ladyfriend, Space Cadet Anni.

Everything in the Universe Makes Music. Even the Trees? Yes, of Course the Trees.

So this guy made a thing that turns slices of trees into records. Read more about it here.

Stockhausen: Tuning In

Bjork Explains Modern Music

The Ticks Turn Into Tocks and the Tocks Turn Into Ticks: Derek Bailey

Derek Bailey is a controversial guitarist. (Just look at the comments under these videos at YouTube.) For my part, while I would never want to completely give up traditional melody, dynamics, or even good old power chords, when I hear this I feel like I should put down the guitar forever if I can't find something new to say, or at least develop my own voice with it.

Steve Reich, "Music For 18 Musicians"

The minimalist masterpiece. (Whut's minimalism? Why, according to its enemies, it's fascist-consumerist-narcissism. In otherworlds, it's classical music's Rock 'n' Roll. Sayeth the dour serialists: "God indeed does throw dice,/ but never does he ever/ say the same thing twice.") "Dean" Christgau gave it an A minus. Well, one is tempted to hedge a bit with such a reputation on the line. On the other hand . . . 

The Residents, "Eskimo"

Hat tip to Space Cadet Moon. Uploaded by Virgil Pink.

Episode #16: Cosmic Chaos: The Music of Uqbar

Playlist

1. Heliocentric- Sun Ra
2. Imaginary Landscape- John Cage
3. Variations on a Mexican Flute- Pierre Schaeffer
4. Piece for a Tape Recorder- Vladimir Ussachevsky
5. Agricultural Em Crateras- Hronir
6. Flotenmenschen 2- Dom
7. James- Cluster
8. Tides of Manaunaun- Henry Cowell
9. 4 (glagolitico)- Catasto Elettrico
10. Incantation- Otto Luening & Vladimir Ussachevsky
11. Womb of My Mind- Szbuta Soroh
12. Pfigstoratorium (Spiritus Intelligentiae Sanctus)- Ernst Krenek
13. Fantasy in Space- Otto Luening
14. Untitled- Blank Realm
15. Dogstar Regions Episodes 1, 3, 5 &7- R.S.P. (Radigast Space Project featuring Heartfieldjohnny)
16. Arnold School 1- The Mighty Acts of God
17. Cosmic Chaos- Sun Ra

Download Episode 16!

Hand-Rolled Oblivion (Various Artists [mymwly]) / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

I Want My Avant-Garde TV

This video is great (hat tip to WFMU). I'm a bit dismayed by some of the comments on Youtube, though. For instance, someone remarked, "I really wanted to mute all idiots laughing... bunch of ignorants." To which someone else replied, "I think Cage considered the idiots laughing as part of his music." 

Now, I totally agree that Cage considered the audience reaction as part of the music. But I don't think he would have considered them idiots. Why? Because art is supposed to be stone cold serious? Do you think they laugh because they don't "get it?" Do you think you get it?

If you do, then you don't. If you don't, then you do. Get it?

These comments completely ignore the influence of Zen on Cage's work. This is the musical equivalent of a koan. There's no "getting it," as in rationally understanding it. It is its action. It is what is happening. You either enjoy that or you don't, and there's no prescribed way to enjoy it (though Cage himself says he prefers laughter to tears, and hear hear for that). The only people who really don't get it are the dildos who pay to go see/hear 4'33" and then just sit there in silence. The piece isn't supposed to be four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence, it's simply four minutes and thirty three seconds. Cage didn't believe in silence, so that's actually the one thing the piece can't be.

By explaining the music this way, have I indicted myself along with people who think they understand it and look down upon others who don't? Perhaps, but I don't mind the paradox. I find it appropriate, and it amuses me.

Humorlessness, pretentiousness, and conformity is destroying the arts. I want my avant-garde TV.

Experimental Sunday: Einsturzende Neubaten

Howdy folks. Are you having a good time? Enjoying the chants, the drones, the sacred noise? Good. More is forthcoming. More writing will be forthcoming as well. Which you might not care for. But this is not about you. Just gloss over it and crank up the jams.

Y'know, I do like to read from time to time. Too bad the internet distracts me from the fact that I have an amazing library of mostly unread books. I could be spellbound by Fearful Symmetry or The Golden Bough, but no I'm on goddamn twitter or ok cupid trying to impress people with my stupid nonsense. Anyway, one of the things I've most enjoyed reading recently (last night, until 5am, because somebody left a case of PBR at my house, and I am a madman) is a blog called "Fuck Theory." You love it already, no?

There's a great post on the German industrial band Einsturzende Neubaten. It's a band I keep hearing about, but have yet to really investigate. Till now. Love it. Like a postpunk Faust. Here's the part (of the post) that really got to me:

I was not a happy teenager.  Without too many maudlin details, suffice to say that the domestic situation I grew up in left scars quite a bit deeper than the average teenage angst.  By the time I was 15, every fucking day was a wild oscillation between nuclear rage and terrible, self-loathing depression.  I had all of these pent-up energies, and no idea what to do with them.  And then, at the age of 14, I discovered two aesthetic investments that would change my life forever - Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs, and Einstürzende Neubauten. 

Replace "Einsturzende Neubaten" with "The Velvet Underground," and I could say the very same thing. But I'm not going to get into that now or here. This is about the music. First though, I'll say that while I'm just an amateurish idiot who don't know shit about crap, I think what this guy's doing with this blog is very interesting, entertaining, and there's a lot I can endorse here. For instance:

On the one hand . . . 

. . . but on the other.

This is a philosophy blog, btw. Again, I don't know Deleuze from my own dick, but I know authentic writing from academic wankery. I keep finding bloggers, who make no money and have no cultural capital to speak of, but who can write and think glorious blazing circles around the New York Times, New Yorker, et al. Chuck that shit, my friends. They aren't smarter than you, they aren't cooler than you. They're privileged and therefore clueless. (Oh, and did you know they lie, like all the time?) What you think is valid, is beautiful, is true. They're main street. They're a park bench on main street. We're in the fucking jungle, the fucking desert. We're in fucking space.

But, oh yeah, this is about the music. Which is about everything. Here's Neubaten:




One of the band members plays the shovel. Neato.




Now I know what "industrial" music actually means.

Charles Ives: The Unanswered Question

Here's an excellent video from NewMusicXX explaining the composition and intent of the great American composer Charles Ives' "The Unanswered Question."

Karlheinz Stockhausen: Stimmung

From Wikipedia:

"The German word stimmung has several meanings, including 'tuning' and 'mood.' The word is the noun formed from the verb stimmen, which means 'to harmonize, to be correct,' and related to stimme (voice). The primary sense of the title 'implies not only the outward tuning of the voices or instruments, but also the inward tuning of one's soul'."